


i'll be your everything (you'll be the death of me)

by fbismoak (midwestwind)



Series: we kiss (and kill) each other [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Olicity Hiatus Fic-A-Thon, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post Episode: s01e18 Salvation, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 23:56:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midwestwind/pseuds/fbismoak
Summary: She pulls from him, just enough to instruct, “Tell me what you need me to do.”His eyes are still closed, mouth smeared with the color and shine of her lipstick, when he responds,“Stay.”(something about the savior leaves oliver rattled and shaken. felicity decides it’s her chance to return the favor oliver had given her weeks ago.)





	i'll be your everything (you'll be the death of me)

**Author's Note:**

> listen. i started writing this fic on april 22nd and i just finished it. if that doesn’t tell you about how my muse is managing, then nothing will. but hey, it’s that follow up to empty gold i’ve been promising, yay! it also comes with a much more hopeful ending than the last one so hopefully y’all won’t yell at me so much this time damn. enjoy!!
> 
> note: like i said, this is a follow up to "empty gold (if the morning light don't steal our souls)". you probably don't /have/ to read that to get the gist of this fic considering it's mostly just smut but, it might help? you do you, boo boo!

John leaves first, following a call from Carly. They’ve been discussing the implications of the connection to the Glades, running over scenarios. But the truth is, even with the emblem, they’re no closer to understanding what the notebook means than they were without it.

 

Most terrible things in this city make their way into the Glades eventually, one way or another.

 

Felicity is still here because there’s no reason why the death of two men still needs to be easily accessible on the internet. It’s all forever, she knows, but she can at least make it more difficult for people to see the videos of Nickel and Carnahan from the subway car.

 

She can hear Oliver moving around behind her. It’s been mostly quiet since John left as they continued to work on their separate tasks. Felicity has become familiar with the ways he messes with things, finds problems with his equipment to fix or some new distracting exercise to do, in order to prolong his time in the foundry. She knows he’s here long after her or John most nights.

 

Despite herself, she can’t stop from worrying about him. Tonight was a win, technically. She keeps trying to remind herself of that. But Oliver is quiet tonight, quiet in a new way, and she’s… Well, she doesn’t know what she is. Because, he was right, they can’t always win. There are going to be days like today when she does everything she can, makes all the best possible choices, and it still won’t be enough. So, she’ll have to get used to whatever this feeling is.

 

Except she still can’t get the sound of Carnahan’s scream out of her mind, the look on Roy Harper’s face as he’d been convinced no one would miss him and stared death down with a sad defiance.

 

Sending a few more commands through her computer, she lets the program run itself and spins her chair to find Oliver. He’s sitting on one of the uncomfortable metal stools at the work table in the back, screwing arrowheads into shafts, checking them, unscrewing them and trying it again. She watches him for a little bit, sure there’s nothing wrong with the way he assembles the arrows the first time but noting that for each one he does it two or three times before he’s happy with the work.

 

Finally, she eases herself out of her chair and crosses the room until she’s a few feet behind him. The heels on her ankle boots are quiet against the concrete.

 

“It’s pretty late,” she says. It doesn’t startle him, few things really seem to, but his shoulders tighten. She watches the muscles move underneath his dress shirt, tries not to remember stroking her fingers over them as he kissed her neck. It’d be so much easier to forget the night they don’t speak of if he weren’t walking around half naked around her almost all the time. Maybe he’s really just a sadist.

 

“You heading out?” He asks, breaking her out of the thought and shifting himself on the stool so he’s turned towards her now. She takes a careful step forward, aware of the space between them.

 

“It’s been a long night,” she says and he nods in agreement. She adds, “For both of us.”

 

Oliver lets out a heavy breath and looks away from her. When he’d come back from saving Roy, he’d looked a new kind of awful. Not physically. He always looks unfairly gorgeous and she doesn’t think Falk had even landed a blow on him. But there’d been something heavy on his shoulders, pressing down. He’d tried to hide it, but she knows John had noticed as well, asking him if he was okay when he’d come back downstairs after checking on the club and Thea.

 

He’d said he was getting there, but she’s beginning to wonder if he’d meant it.

 

“We know what the emblem is now,” she says, trying for optimistic when he doesn’t respond to her. “That’s something.”

 

“It’s not a lot,” Oliver says, tilting his head and countering her positivity with his own brand of tired negativity. She shrugs, taking another step towards him without thinking in her effort to convince him that there may be a light at the end of this tunnel. One that isn’t a stolen subway train rocketing towards them.

 

“It’s more than we had yesterday,” she insists. “Hell, it’s more than we had this morning.”

 

“I know,” he nods and it’s not really a win, she knows, but she’ll take it anyway. The basement falls silent again, nothing but the ever present hiss of the bared pipes as steam and water moves through them and further throughout the building.

 

She has about a million ideas for more efficient ways to warm and light the place. Things that would take work and money, but she tempers herself every time she thinks about suggesting them to Oliver. She still doesn’t know if she intends to stick around after they find Walter.

 

On good nights – the ones where they take down the bad guy and everyone lives – it’s easy to imagine doing just that for the rest of her life, or for as long as Oliver continues this. But on night’s like tonight? When there’s death and destruction and everyone seems to have lost in the end, it’s hard to imagine letting herself stay.

 

“Falk was different,” she says quietly and she can tell the observation surprises him from the way he looks back up at her, brow pinching in confusion.

 

“How do you figure?” He asks.

 

“I’m not sure,” she admits, shrugging her shoulders. “But something about him – maybe something he said or did – it was different… wasn’t it?”

 

He holds her gaze for a long moment and she bites down on her tongue just to keep from saying anything else. She’d heard, in fuzzy, broken words over the comms, the things he’d said to Falk. The things he’d admitted about himself without saying it so directly.

 

Oliver Queen is a man who could have anything he wanted with a snap of his fingers or his signature on the right cheque.

 

But, Oliver? This man who sits in front of her now – shoulders too straight to be casual, shadows forming in the spaces beneath his eyes as if the darkness within him is slowly making its way out. She wonders if it will consume him one day, all the demons and monsters he carries around inside of him. He lets them share his space because it’s easier, maybe, than the reality of what would happen once he lets them go.

 

Oliver is lonely.

 

“I just thought he might be worthy of a second chance,” he says so quietly the words almost aren’t there. “I was wrong.”

 

Felicity laces her fingers together in front of her, shifting her weight between her feet and choosing her words carefully. She speaks slowly into the mostly quiet basement.

 

“One guy, hurt by the loss of a loved one due to a tragic not-so-accident, disappears for a few years and then comes back to seek revenge on the bad people in this city,” she considers, earning an eyebrow raise from Oliver. “It’s not exactly hard to draw a parallel here.”

 

Oliver’s head dips, his jaw working with the statement, but he doesn’t argue. Falk hadn’t been their normal baddie of the week. He’d been almost… redeemable. But, when it had come down to it, he couldn’t give Roy a second chance.

 

“Falk let himself become so isolated in his grief and his anger,” Oliver starts slowly and she’s almost surprised at it. He still isn’t looking at her, but she can’t take her eyes off of him, knowing anything he says in this vulnerable state is important, a rare honesty. “He forgot what not being alone felt like.”

 

“Oliver,” she says softly, chancing another step towards him. They’ve been keeping their distance ever since the night of the auction. It hasn’t been discussed, or an overt reaction. It isn’t like they were terribly familiar with each other before it, but there’s a level of unspokenness to it.

 

“Sometimes, it feels like I never really left that island,” he admits and his voice gives in the middle of the words, breaking and betraying the emotions he works so hard to keep stored down inside of him. “I don’t want to be there anymore.”

 

“What do you want?” She asks quietly and he looks up at her finally, blinking like he hadn’t considered the question.

 

How often he plays the selfish rich kid. Disappearing on friends and family with flaky excuses and see-through smiles. But here he is, staring at her like the question of what he might actually want is something he’s never even considered. Her chest aches for him, for the man he could have been but had lost somewhere along the way.

 

The man he could still find a way to become if he’d only give himself the room to grow, to breathe.

 

“If none of this were standing in your way,” she posits, holding her hands out to her sides to indicate the room around her, the greater meaning of it. “If you could just have whatever it is, what would you want?”

 

He’s still staring at her, but his shoulders tense as he takes a sharp breath in. She’s gravitated closer to him without realizing, so close that if she leaned forward just a touch the fronts of her thighs would bump against his knees, bent in front of him on the stool.

 

“You,” he says suddenly, the word coming out on a ragged breath. The broken honesty of it shocks her and something uncomfortable and heavy settles in her stomach.

 

She doesn’t want to be a hypothetical for him.

 

Her feet move faster than her brain this time and suddenly she’s standing in the space between his knees. He’s looking up her, her proximity putting her a few inches above him from his seated position. She strokes her fingers gently over his face, his jaw cradled in her palms. He tilts his head, just so, letting himself lean into the comfort of her touch.

 

“You don’t have to be on that island,” she says quietly. “You can be here, in this moment… with me.”

 

He looks up at her, eyes darkened with his mood. But there’s something there. Something that looks suspiciously like hope and she thinks he wants to believe her. It’s hard for him, she knows. There’s only a finite amount of what she knows that he’s seen, but trust and hope – the warm and positive emotions – those don’t come easy.

 

She knows. She’s had to fight tooth and nail to keep them herself.

 

“Sometimes it’s easier to be alone,” she continues, echoing the thoughts from their moment earlier that day. When she’d questioned how to even explain the pain and loss she felt for a man she’d never met. “But it’s up to us to make the choice not to be.”

 

Oliver’s eyes drift shut and Felicity lets her fingers stroke over his beard for a moment longer before pulling her hand back. He catches her wrist, lightning fast reflexes making her tense as he squeezes gently and holds her hand in place. She doesn’t mind until he moves her hand, pressing her palm flat against his mouth and kissing the sensitive skin there. Her chest tightens painfully at the tenderness of it.

 

“Oliver,” she breathes, unsure what she even needs – for him to stop doing this to her, to finish what they started weeks ago. Her voice breaks over his name and his fingers tighten, his eyes opening to meet hers.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, the words foreign coming from him, muffled by her palm. She can count on the hand still dangerously close to his lips the amount of times he’s apologized to her over the time she’s known him. Stubborn and bull-headed and always-has-to-be-right.

 

And yet here she is.

 

“You were right,” he presses on, his grip on her wrist loosening until it drops from his fingers entirely. Maybe she’s hallucinating because a ‘you were right’ is even rarer than an ‘I’m sorry’. “It has been a long night.”

 

He’s the one who moves this time, straightening just enough in his seat to put them eye to eye. It feels like the moment freezes as his gaze moves over her face, lands at her mouth. He’s always doing that to her, but this time feels deliberate.

 

Then, almost predictably, he waits for her.

 

It feels like something snapping — a tense, taut string finally giving way to the strain — when she leans forwards just enough to meet him. Her hand cradles the underside of his jaw as she kisses him.

 

She thinks maybe he breathes a sigh before he kisses her back.

 

Felicity knows it’s a mistake. Just like last time, it’ll make things weird and tense for a few weeks and then… nothing. She’s not even sure she wants anything else. Still, the moment drags and she can’t find it in herself to pull from him.

 

Oliver’s hands find her hips, tugging her further into his space. She stumbles a step forward, slipping in between his knees.

 

The last time he’d kissed her, she’d be the unsure, emotionally shaken one. It’s odd to want so badly to take care of someone who’s spent years having to hold himself together. Oliver has saved so many people, but he doesn’t know how to save himself. It’s something he needs to do on his own, she knows.

 

But it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to help.

 

She pulls from him, just enough to instruct, “Tell me what you need me to do.”

 

His eyes are still closed, mouth smeared with the color and shine of her lipstick, when he responds,

 

“Stay.”

 

She frowns a little, startled by the raw sound of his voice. She’s never seen him as rattled as tonight has left him. Tommy finding out his secret, Deadshot’s return, they’d been bad. But this? Something about James Falk had dug deep into him and made him question something – himself, the mission, she’s not sure. He’s always seemed so focused, so certain of himself and what he’s been doing. It’s almost painful to see him this way.

 

Oliver had managed to help her regain some control after the Dodger had shaken her foundation. Felicity is willing to return the favor.

 

“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” she assures him. He tilts his head to the side, letting out a short breath as he nods at the words.

 

Oliver’s hands come up to her face and she frowns when they continue upwards until the reach her glasses, sliding them gingerly from her face and setting them to the side. When his hands return, he takes the sides of her face this time, cradling her gently as he guides her mouth back to his. She moves easily, letting him control their pace this time. 

 

It’s not something she’s typically very good at, giving up control. But neither is Oliver and he’d allowed her to take it the last time. Surely she can adapt.

 

Her own hands drift down, exploring the planes of him and trying to commit them to memory this time. She’d been in such a mad rush last time and she’d known from the moment it started it had been doomed, but she hadn’t taken her time with him. This time, she wants to savor every painful memory.

 

Maybe she’s a little bit of a masochist. Maybe they both are. After all, they’ve found themselves here once again. No sign of stopping. Barreling past every reminder that this only ends one way.

 

Her hands land on his thighs, the soft material of his suit pants creasing beneath her palms. She’d nearly forgotten he was dressed for the club, having become accustomed to a more casual Oliver. The man who straps his quiver over that light blue sweater that does strange things to her insides as he skewers tennis balls to the wall across from her work station.

 

Momentarily, she feels, irrationally, cheated by the fabric beneath her fingers. The lack of those stupidly tailored jeans, the softness of the sweaters she’s been aching to strip off of him. He’s not any different in his Oliver-Queen-the-club-owner-slash-playboy getup, really.

 

But… he is in a way, isn’t he?

 

“Felicity,” he says, pulling away from her and startling her from the thoughts. “Stop thinking so much.”

 

There’s a warm lilt to his voice that lets her know he’s teasing her. Still, her fingers bunch in the material of his slacks and she feels the muscles in his thighs tighten in response.

 

“That’s kind of a tall order for me,” she admits, opening her eyes enough to peer at him. Strange to be so level with him, to not have to look up at him to speak. She doesn’t hate the shift. Oliver studies her for a moment and she stills under the scrutiny, lets him search for whatever he’s looking for.

 

“Do you want to stop?” He asks after a moment. Felicity thinks maybe, when it comes to the two of them, she uses too many words anyway. Instead, she ducks forward and covers his mouth with her own once again.

 

To his credit, Oliver responds enthusiastically. He raises to his full seated height, his hands on her jaw guiding her to the perfect angle for him to lick her lower lip, slide his tongue past her own. She forces down a whine at the sensation, but it surfaces as a quiet whimper that he swallows.

 

Her hands, still flat against his thighs, move steadily up towards his hips. He bites down gently on her lip as she palms him through his slacks, already responding to her as she strokes her fingers delicately over the length of him, her touch barely there but enough that she knows he can feel it through the fabric.

 

When she tightens her grip suddenly, Oliver pulls his mouth away from hers to tilt his head back. It exposes the underside of his jaw and Felicity takes advantage. Her lipstick must be nearly gone from the way it’s smeared over his mouth. Something dark and primal in her stomach delights at the sight.

 

As if she’s branded him as hers. Just for tonight.

 

Oliver’s hands drop to her shoulders, much firmer than the way he’d squeezed her shoulder earlier, quietly saying words meant just for her ears. His fingers pick carefully at the hems of her cardigan, silently waiting for permission. She almost wishes to test his patience, see just how long he’ll wait on her before taking control.

 

Instead, she nips at a spot on his jaw, her tongue licking over the area to soothe the bite, and he takes it as the go ahead. Nimble fingers push her sweater down her shoulders as far as he can with her still stroking him. One of the sleeves catches on her bracelets, pushing them down her wrist, and she pulls her hands away from him.

 

“You look nice in purple,” he comments, almost off hand, as she pulls the cardigan off to reveal the matching sleeveless top beneath.

 

“Thanks,” she murmurs, but frowns, realizing she’s been wearing this same thing for two days and hasn’t left this basement for anything since she’d arrived the previous afternoon. She laughs a little, running a hand over her hair. “God, I must look like a mess after two days of nothing but vigilante work, though.”

 

His hands land on her hips, over the thick material of her pencil skirt, and squeeze. It pulls her attention back to him as the cardigan falls to the cement floor.

 

“You look amazing,” he says and then kisses her again. He pauses after a moment, barely pulling back from her to add, “You are amazing.”

 

And, if she didn’t know it before, now she’s certain. Oliver Queen will absolutely be the death of her.

 

Her fingers fumble over the buttons of his dress shirt, tripping clumsily as she undoes each one and Oliver moves his attentions to the space on her neck under her ear. She wants to strip him down and find out just how strong he is, how long that hard won stamina of his can last.

 

He nips at her earlobe just as she pushes his open shirt off his shoulders and her fingernails bite into the skin of his biceps. Felicity pulls herself in closer to him, reacting to his touch.

 

She doesn’t like giving up control. In most aspects of her life, she tries to keep control over everything she can. It makes her feel together, keeps her sane. Sex has never really been any different. It’s hard for her to trust someone enough to give them that power.

 

Oliver’s movements are slow and thought out. The way he moves in a training session with John or taking down some low level criminal. Never one to be caught off guard. But this isn’t about being taken by surprise. He’s waiting on her, letting her set the pace and make the choices.

 

It’d be appreciated if that weren’t the exact opposite of what this is about.

 

“Oliver,” she says, in between the press of his mouth against hers. He moves to her jaw, allowing her the opportunity to speak. “This is me returning the favor.”

 

He hums against her, but only continues his exploration of her jaw. Felicity pushes him away to make eye contact, earning a raised eyebrow from him.

 

“Take control,” she instructs, something she wouldn’t have ever expected someone to need to tell Oliver to do. “Tell me what you need from me tonight.”

 

His eyes darken with the words, fingers clenching at her hips. They press almost painfully, digging the harsh material of her skirt into her skin. She can practically feel him letting go of all that self-control of his. It’s not something she would have associated with him when she’d first seen him in action, but she knows it now. Knows how much of himself he holds back for the comfort of others.

 

“Easier to show you,” he says roughly and then he’s standing, descending on her as he shakes off the shirt still hanging from his arms. His kisses turn desperate and pressing, needy as he pushes against her. Felicity wraps her arms around his shoulders and keeps with his pace.

 

Once his arms are free, he leads her backwards until she feels her back collide with the edge of one of the tables. She maps out the room in her mind, tries to think of what they keep on this table and if it’s important. Oliver, clearly deciding it isn’t, sweeps one of his hands out and the quiet of the room is punctuated by the sound of items clattering to the cement floor.

 

Felicity lets out a huff of a laugh as he lifts her suddenly, depositing her on the table.

 

“That was a little unnecessary, don’t you think?” She teases, earning a nip to her shoulder from Oliver.

 

“What did I say about thinking?” He reminds her, punctuating the question with the slide of his hands untucking her shirt from her skirt and hiking it up her ribs.

 

“Point taken,” she sighs as his hands explore beneath the shirt, kneading her through the soft material of her bra.

 

She takes a moment, as his focus remains on her throat and her chest, to survey the room around them. He’d been all over her space for days after they’d slept together, the reminder of him on nearly every surface. She wants to be all over his space, wants him to remember the taste of her, the sight of her whenever he’s down here without her.

 

Maybe that’s selfish. It’s definitely self-defeating, considering she spends nearly as much time down here as he does. How is she supposed to forget?

 

Oliver’s hands distract her, tugging her shirt fully free from the waist of her skirt and helping it over her head. She lifts her arms to help, easing it over her ponytail when it attempts to get caught. While she’s still freeing the shirt from her arm and tossing it away, Oliver is leaving a trail of warm kisses over the tops of her breasts.

 

She buries her nails in his hair encouragingly, guiding him further down until he noses the cup of her bra out of the way to take one of her nipples into his mouth. She hums in pleasure at his attentions, his tongue doing wonders while his hand teases her other breast through her bra.

 

It isn’t until she’s panting and squirming against him, ready to press on his shoulders until he’s showing her clit the same kind of care, that she realizes it had been his exact aim. She groans in frustration – at him for playing her body so easily and herself for getting lost in it – and pushes at his shoulders.

 

“What?” He asks as she pushes him back, but the laugh in his voice tells her he knows exactly what he’s doing. Trying to force her to take over, to take what she wants from him. He’d almost managed it.

 

“Tonight is about making you feel better, remember?” She reminds him, pushing at his chest until there’s enough space between him and the table for her to slide from the metal surface. Her pencil skirt has bunched up her thighs, but she doesn’t bother to fix it. Instead she adjusts her bra and reaches for the buckle of his belt.

 

“Felicity,” he starts, sounding like he’s going to argue. She grips him through his trousers again, finding him much more ready to go than before, and it effectively shuts him up.

 

“Oliver,” she purrs, pressing up in her heels towards him. Lips not quite touching, but enough that she can feel the warm puffs of his breath against her mouth. He sways, like he’s going to duck down and close the distance between them. “Shh.”

 

Just as he finally ducks forward to close the distance, she drops out of reach. His belt out of the way, she undoes the fly on his pants, drags the zipper down, catching his eyes as she works slowly, carefully. No longer touching her, Oliver can only watch her movements, eyes dark with arousal.

 

When she reaches past the material of his boxers and frees him, she watches the way the muscles in his jaw tighten, how his hands reach out for her but never land home, clenching into fists as she wraps her fingers around him. Still holding on to that self-control. Felicity realizes she’s going to have to force him to let it go.

 

Slowly, she drags her tongue up the length of him. Oliver lets out a low moan and she relishes in it. When she reaches the tip of him, she swirls her tongue around it, one hand moving in slow strokes. The other rests on his naked abdomen, feeling the coiling and shaking of his muscles as he works to hold on to his control.

 

Digging her fingers lightly into his stomach, Felicity takes him into her mouth and gives a gentle suck, her tongue flat against the underside of him.

 

He snaps like a tensed wire, finally breaking under the strain, and his control is lost.

 

Oliver’s hand buries in her ponytail, finally encouraging her to give him what he needs. He urges her to take more of him into her mouth, the movements of her hand meeting with the bobbing of her head. She twists her wrist, creating an added sensation for him as she keeps her balance with her hand flat against his stomach.

 

She moans around him, looking up to meet his eye, and feels the way his muscles tighten under her palm.

 

“Fuck, Felicity,” he huffs out and she thinks he has more to say, but she lets her teeth drag carefully, feather-light over his skin as she pulls back from him and the words are lost to a low moan.

 

She lets out a soft laugh of delight as she angles him to kiss along the shaft before taking him back into her mouth. Oliver’s hand in her hair guides her to the pace he needs, but she can tell he’s still cautious about taking too much control.

 

Likewise, Felicity pays attention to the pull of his muscles. It’d be a shame if the night were to end too early for either of them. She takes him as far as she thinks he can manage, delights in the tight pull of her hair through his fingers, the rough sound of her name on his tongue. Like he’s found a whole new language in the syllables of her name.

 

Then, she releases him.

 

The wet pop of her mouth freeing his cock mixes with his heavy breath in the otherwise quiet basement. She looks up at him, wrecked by her attentions, and feels invincible.

 

She feels no shame in the way she climbs back up his body, fingers and mouth seeking out the ridges of his abs, the scars that are quickly becoming familiar to her. All while he pants under her minstrations. Tonight is meant to be about letting him have control, but Felicity can’t help but feel powerful as well.

 

Especially when Oliver wastes no time in pulling her mouth back to his. The kisses he presses to her lips are sloppy, filled with arousal and want. His tongue strokes over hers, tasting himself on her. She scratches her nails through his hair, using the leverage to pull herself against him.

 

“You are so,” he rasps between kisses, his hands falling from her back to where her skirt has bunched just beneath her ass cheeks. He pulls it up further, kneading and squeezing her ass as she moves against him. She hums, encouraging him to continue, eager for the praise.

 

He finishes as he lifts her suddenly and her legs come around his waist, “God damn sexy.”

 

She laughs as he turns them, backs her against one of the cement pillars.

 

“Not so bad yourself,” she says, teasingly. Oliver nips at the top of her breast and she lets out a small gasp, her head falling back against the pillar behind her. She arches her back, pressing her pelvis tighter against his and grinding down on him.

 

One of his hands supports her weight beneath her ass while the other slips between them, thumb moving in gentle circles over her clit. Felicity squirms against him, eager at the building heat in her stomach, desperate for him to press forward and fill her.

 

And then she groans, her head dropping forward until it lands on his shoulder.

 

“What?” Oliver asks, in that familiar adorable confused voice reserved for things like computer jargon and Hamlet references.

 

“I almost hate to ask this,” she sighs, the words only slightly muffled by the bare skin of his shoulder. “But please, please tell me you have a condom.”

 

He chuckles, dipping his head so his beard scratches over the exposed skin of her own shoulder.

 

“Back pocket,” he instructs and she takes easy advantage of her position to slide her hands down his back, over his ass, to the pockets of his suit pants. She slides one hand into each, fishing his wallet out of the one she finds it in and leaving the other one to squeeze his ass. He stiffens, surprised by it, and nips at her earlobe.

 

Gently, her sets her back on the floor, still bracketed between his body and the pillar behind her. His attention moves to his wallet as he takes it from her, searching within for the promised condom, and Felicity takes advantage of his distraction. Her fingers slide over the planes of his chest, trace the lines – natural, unnatural, and inked in.

 

When she leans forward to press her lips to the tattoo over his heart, he stills.

 

Felicity looks back up at him to find him watching her, foil packet in one hand and the wallet in his other. He tosses the leather wallet to the floor and cups her jaw. His kiss is gentle this time, surprising her as he kisses her slow. Like suddenly they have all the time in the world.

 

Something in her chest pinches at the thought, but she presses up and kisses him back.

 

Reaching over, she plucks the foil packet from his fingers with one hand and strokes him with the other. The pace of her hand over him speeds him up, kissing her a little more roughly. Felicity pulls from him after a moment, tearing open the packaging for the condom.

 

“I can,” he tries, but she’s already rolling it over him slowly and the words die in his throat.

 

“It’s a little better this way, right?” She teases, earning a look from him. He crowds her against the pillar again, hiking her skirt further up over her hips and revealing the matching purple thong beneath. He looks down at her, his fingers moving over her again, and smirks.

 

“Consistent,” he jokes, giving as good as she can. His fingers increase their pace and all she can do is hum in response, pressing back against the pillar.

 

Oliver’s hands leave her and she gives an annoyed whine of protest. He lets out a breathy laugh, looping his fingers through the strings of her underwear and pulling them down her hips. Felicity straightens, reaching down to help him get them down her legs. She bends to pull them carefully off around her heels.

 

When she stands, Oliver’s hands return to her hips, spinning her so suddenly she lets out a startled yelp. Without warning, she’s now facing the cement rather than him and he’s urging her legs apart with one of his own. She can feel him stroking himself behind her and she squirms with want.

 

“This okay?” He asks, mouth right at her ear and she nods a bit too eagerly.

 

“So, so okay,” she assures him.

 

He slides into her and she bites down on her lip so hard she thinks she might bite through. One hand reaches around behind her, finding purchase on his ass. Her nails dig into the fabric of the pants he still wears, holding him in place for a moment.

 

“Oh my God,” she breathes, unable to stop the words from falling from her lips.

 

“Yeah,” he huffs in agreement, his chin nearly on her shoulder. His arms hold her steady, wrapping around her. The digits of his one hand dance dangerously close to the space between her thighs as they both adjust. His other arm tucks beneath her breasts, steadying her on her heels.

 

If someone had asked – not that they could have because she hadn’t told anyone – about her time with Oliver, Felicity would have said she’d probably romanticized the whole thing. She’d slept with enough people to know that some are good and some are okay. Surely, Oliver couldn’t have felt that much different than anyone else.

 

And yet.

 

Her grip on him loosens and he takes it as a sign to finally move. He rocks his hips forward into her and she arches back against him, meeting his movements with her own. Her hand comes up to wrap around the back of his neck and she feels strangely exposed. Neither of them are fully naked but that makes it better somehow. Hotter, dirtier.

 

Too caught up to worry about the layers of clothing still between them.

 

Oliver’s hand on her stomach moves down, wrapping in the fabric of her skirt and pulling it further up her abdomen. Once it’s out of the way, his hand moves further south until he’s stroking slowly over her clit in time with his thrusts from behind.

 

She whines and he presses a kiss to her neck, exposed to him by the position and her – now definitely messy – ponytail.

 

“Talk to me, Felicity,” he growls against her ear. Earlier today he’d yelled it at her through the comms as they searched frantically for a man whose death warrant had already been signed. Now, the words are a little pleading, wanting. She grinds back against him.

 

“I’m not a dirty talk kind of person,” she argues, the words difficult as she works to keep her voice even. Oliver slows his pace suddenly, his fingers stilling, and she groans in annoyance.

 

“That’s not what I mean,” he chuckles and she wiggles against him, trying to reset the pace. His control beats hers. “Just talk to me. Tell me what you like.”

 

“ _ Why _ ?” She huffs, annoyed as he slows further, barely moving inside of her now.

 

He’s quiet for a moment and then, without warning, pushes nearly entirely inside of her. She whimpers, her nails digging into his hair, biting against skin. Torture, that’s what this is. He’s gotten her all hot and bothered and now he’s denying her. God, if she had the ability to kill him, she really might.

 

“Because you’re gorgeous,” he says, punctuating the statement with a thrust. “And brilliant.” Another. “And I like hearing you.”

 

And then he’s moving again, pressing into her with quick movements and she’s hard pressed to deny him anything when he can make her feel like this. Entirely on fire in the most delightful way. Like she may just spontaneously combust in his arms. Totally against every scientific law she’s ever learned. She wouldn’t put it past Oliver to make her do that.

 

“Fuck,” she calls out, unable to help herself. She’s not much of a talker when it comes to sex. In every other aspect of her life, sure. But for this stuff, she likes to focus. To pay her mind to the feelings and sensations. Maybe he picked up on it the last time they did this.

 

Maybe he really does just like to hear her voice.

 

“There you go,” he says encouragingly. His arm moves from around her chest, pulling at one of the cups of her bra and rolling her nipple between his fingers.

 

Felicity can’t help herself, caught up in his attentions. As much as this was supposed to be about him, she can do nothing for him but hang on. Entirely wrapped around her, he has control over their movements, her body. A tender kind of torture.

 

Once the words begin to form, it’s like floodgates opening. She’s whining his name and telling him what she needs, instructing him to move faster, to touch her here or there. He complies, in control but listening to her needs. Felicity considers it may be a shared control.

 

When she comes for him, it’s with his name rolling off her tongue and his arms holding her steady against him. She puts an arm out, bending forward to support herself against the pillar and grinding back against him, guiding him towards his own release.

 

Oliver kisses her shoulder and murmurs her name when he comes. Felicity still feels like she may combust.

 

“We are  _ really _ good at that,” she comments once she can breathe again, her legs no longer shaking dangerously in her heels. It’s been a while since she’d done that in heels and, well, clearly she needs to dedicate some time to her legs next time she’s at the gym.

 

“Yeah,” Oliver laughs, watching her as she straightens herself out as best as she can. She’s still caught between him and the pillar, but she’s turned back around to face him. “Yeah, we are.”

 

He swoops towards her again, surprising a giddy laugh from her that she’ll absolutely blame on the orgasm. Arms coming around her, he lifts her again and she has to wrap her legs around his waist just to hold on. He kisses her chest and places her once more on the table. The cold metal against her ass causes a quiet squeak to escape her.

 

“What are you doing?” She asks as he encourages her to the edge of the table.

 

“Just lie back,” he instructs, dropping slowly to his knees between her thighs. She leans forward instead, looking down at him.

 

“Hey, this was supposed to be about you,” she says, for what has to be the third time of the night. “And that, over there? Was amazing. Seriously. You don’t have to do this.”

 

“Felicity,” he says slowly, that placating tone he uses when she goes off on a tangent and they really, really need her to focus. “I have dreamed about tasting you again.”

 

And, the image of Oliver staring up at her from between her bare thighs, practically begging her to let him go down on her? Yeah, that isn’t one she’s going to forget any time soon.

 

“Believe me,” he goes on, his hand coming up to land flat on her stomach, encouraging her to lie back on the table. She complies. “This is absolutely for me.”

 

Felicity squirms against his mouth, her fingers buried in his hair, and wonders vaguely if resolving to commit everything about tonight to memory was such a good idea.

 

\---

 

“Do you think we’ll ever get this right?” Oliver asks, surprising her. She’s nearly fully dressed now, her cardigan still bundled on the floor. Her fingers falter over the buttons on his shirt, helping him redress before they head to their separate cars, return to their own sides.

 

“What do you mean?” She asks, swallowing thickly.

 

“We keep doing this out of order,” he explains and she knows he’s not talking about foreplay, then sex, then surprise foreplay again. “I don’t know. Maybe one day…,”

 

He trails off, ducking his head so he’s no longer looking at her. Felicity chews on the corner of her lip as she buttons his shirt the rest of the way for him. An excuse to be close, to touch him and pretend this isn’t exactly what it is for a little longer. He lets her because he’s doing the same thing.

 

They haven’t discussed a hopeful scenario where this isn’t just one, now two, nights. She didn’t know if he’d really want that. But this? The hope in his voice, so strange and rare coming from him. It’s nearly enough to break her.

 

Not that she thinks he isn’t interested in her on some level. Maybe he wasn’t that odd, clumsy guy who seemed to maybe have a crush on her. But he’s not the cold-hearted vigilante who sees her as a means to an end either. Somewhere in between, that’s where the real Oliver Queen hides.

 

“Maybe,” she whispers. Hates the dangling sound of it, the way it taunts them both as they step back from each other. Hope hanging over their heads like a sword on a string.

 

Oliver clears his throat, adjusting the collar on his shirt as he moves away from her. Felicity takes a deep breath in, holds it for a count of three, and lets it out slowly. She moves to the computers, shutting down the programs she’d been running and cutting out the biggest source of light in the room.

 

“You know, my plan was never to do this forever,” Oliver says from the otherside of the room. Surprised, she turns to face him. He’s still looking away from her, but he stoops down to retrieve her sweater from the floor. “I’m hoping I can have a life, you know,  _ after _ .”

 

He turns back to her, smoothing out the material in his hands and holding it out to her.

 

“Maybe you could help me figure out what that life looks like,” he finishes. Stunned by his candor, Felicity stares at him for a long moment.

 

When she reaches to take the sweater from him, the smile that spreads over her face is beyond her own control. She shrugs at him, sliding the sweater back over her shoulders.

 

“Well, I have a pretty good imagination,” she says.

 

The smile Oliver gives her in return is the best thing about the night.

**Author's Note:**

> see? hopeful! please don't yell at me i love you
> 
> now... onto the next chapter of black water...


End file.
